Wrestling Globe Newsletter by Mike Aldren – All the latest professional wrestling news, gossip and occasional opinion direct to your mailbox.
WGN is read by industry power players, many top wrestlers and thousands of fans from all around the world.

Superstars tonight on WGN has Mark Henry vs. Chris Masters; Vladimir Kozlov vs. Tommy Dreamer; and John Morrison vs. CM Punk which was said to be very good.

The Smackdown/ECW crew are in Mexico and kick off their tour tonight in Monterrey.

***

The passing of Captain Lou Albano was picked up by virtually every major media outlet in the United States. Albano, who had been plagued by poor health in recent years, died of natural causes around 3am yesterday at his home in New York surrounded by wife Gerry and several members of his family. His brother George described him as a gentle, giving and religious man who always carried rosary beads in his pocket. Visitation takes place Friday at Balsamo-Cordovano Funeral Home – 15 Church Street, Carmel, NY from 2pm to 4pm and 7pm to 9pm, and a funeral Mass will take place on Saturday morning at St. James the Apostle Church – 14 Gleneida Avenue, Carmel, NY. Wrestler’s Rescue say they will continue to collect donations to help with costs at http://www.wrestlersrescue.org.

A lot of people have asked, but I really can’t see WWE not running some type of tribute video on one of their upcoming TV shows. They did acknowledge his passing on their website but only noted he worked for the company from 1983 to 1996. They described him as, “one of the company’s most popular and charismatic legends.”

All of the mainstream reports on Albano focused on his influence on pop culture and made the connection to Cyndi Lauper and her music video, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Stories ran on CNN, CBS, FOX, the LA Times, the New York Times, and Time Magazine.

‘Lou Albano’ was the No. 2 searched term yesterday on Google, and No. 1 on Twitter trending topics for most of the day.

Several talents paid their respects on their Twitter pages including Chris Jericho, Matt Hardy, Taz, Matt Morgan and Jeremy Borash.

***

The lawsuit Jody Hamilton brought against WWE for breach of contract appears to be moving forward to trial. This dates back to 2007 when Hamilton operated Deep South Wrestling as a WWE developmental hroup in Georgia. An interesting note in the suit is a claim that when John Laurinaitis and Mike “Nova” Bucci went to Georgia to close the operation down Laurinaitis threatened to blackball any talent that continued to do business with DSW or Hamilton. We’ve had this confirmed from people who would know but obviously they would never go on record for obviously reasons. One person did say they would because they are out of the business and don’t really care any more.

Carlito is off television right now because creative say they have nothing for him. He is still with the company but hasn’t had much airtime since the split with Primo. He was also off the house shows last weekend.

The LA times at http://tinyurl.com/m65ay7 has a story on Vince McMahon wanting to launch his own cable network. The story quoted Vince talking about WWE’s library of 100,000 hours of programming but noted WWE has no plans to pull TV from other cable networks. “It won’t be a threat, it’ll be an integration,” Vince said, adding, “it’s good for Raw to be on USA.
Having your own network allows you a lot of leverage.” The reporter was also conned by WWE spin doctors claiming they currently average between 500,000 and 1.4 million buys for a PPV. Only three shows this year have done north of 500,000 and none of those exceeded 1 million, not even Wrestlemania 25 in April.

Mexican star Blue Demon Jr. wrote an article on ESPN athttp://tinyurl.com/yzvtf55 to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. He wrote about WWE expanding into Mexico making it clear he feels they are killing the business. He wrote: “It saddens me that Mexican wrestling is going through a bad time. I foretold this would happen when American wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment, arrived via television. I think the sport is being overexposed on television. You turn to a channel, and there is a wrestling show. Two days later, you turn to another channel, and there is a wrestling show. You turn to cable television, and there is another show. The show is overexposed.
Therefore, people won’t go to the arenas.” He also partly blamed the promoters for not competing hard enough and allowing it to happen: “I think the problem is with the companies that have the resources to compete with the American companies but don’t… They’re sleeping on it.” A really interesting read.

The Memphis Mayoral elections take place today with Jerry Lawler among the 25 candidates. Less than 25 percent of Memphians are expected to vote, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Lawler ran in 1999 and ended up with 12 percent of ballots, beating twelve of the fifteen candidates.

Bret Hart did a radio interview in the UK this past week. He was very critical of both WWE and TNA creative, and even said, “someone should take Vince Russo and hang him by the neck in the back of the parking lot.” He said TNA has turned into another version of WCW and couldn’t understand why anyone would want to watch their show. “Russo’s writing is so pathetically far fetched and does a disservice to the business,”
he said. He put over Randy Orton and AJ Styles calling them the best performers in the world right now, and also said Melina Perez was great as far as the women go. When asked about a return to WWE he was vague but said he likes the idea of coming back to induct his father Stu or brother Owen into the Hall of Fame.

Jim Ross wrote on his blog that he hopes to help Jesse White, the son of Vader, get a job with WWE when he graduates from Oklahoma University in May. Vader is sending his son to start training with Harley Race very soon to get him ready for WWE developmental.

Ross took Smackdown off this week, a first for his broadcasting career, to celebrate his wedding anniversary. Michael Cole replaced him with Todd Grisham, who misses next week’s show due to getting married.

We have notes from Karl Lauer on the services for Beverly Race, Harley’s wife, who passed away this past week, in today’s Mailbag.

Raw on Monday night did a 3.4 rating.

ECW on Tuesday did a 1.0 rating.

FCW has TV tapings tonight in Tampa with Gail Kim appearing for an autograph signing. More info at www.fcwwrestling.com.

The WWE YouTube channel is back online.

TMZ ambushed Steve Austin revealing a scar on his head he sustained shooting his movie Damage when a stunt went wrong. Video is at http://tinyurl.com/ygfal72.

The Marine 2 with Ted Dibiase Jr. will be released on DVD on December 29. A strange date to release a movie.

TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION WRESTLING NEWS

Impact tonight on Spike is a special three-hour show, including a
Countdown to Bound For Glory package, and AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle for
the TNA title in a match everyone is raving about; Awesome Kong, Tara &
ODB vs. The Beautiful People; Amazing Red vs. Suicide; Hernandez vs. The
British Invasion in a gauntlet match; Daniels vs. D’Angelo Dinero;
Hamada vs. Alissa Flash in a falls count anywhere match; and Bobby
Lashley vs. Rhino in a stretcher match.

***

Kurt Angle appeared in court Tuesday in Coraopolis, PA for a preliminary
hearing to respond to allegations of assault made by ex-girlfriend
Trenesha Biggers (Rhaka Khan). Biggers failed to show so the judge
ordered a postponement and set a new hearing date in November. Angle’s
attorney, Michael Santicola, released the following statement to us:
“Despite the fact that Mr. Angle, his lawyers, the police, and the Court
were ready to hear her claims, Ms. Biggers did not bother to contact the
court about her lack of attendance. Once again, the credibility of Ms.
Bigger’s and her story have been called into question. Last month in
Robinson Township, Pennsylvania, Ms. Biggers attempted to have Mr. Angle
brought up on charges. Once her testimony was heard, the Magistrate
properly dismissed all of her claims and cleared Mr. Angle or any
wrongdoing. We believe once Ms. Biggers testifies a second time, the
result will be identical. Her lack of appearance to testify today may be
an indication of an unwillingness to continue this false story any
further.”

TNA via www.mycontent.com will air a free live preview show for Bound
Flor Glory on Sunday with The Motor City Machine Guns vs. Lethal
Consequences, followed by a post-PPV press conference.

Kevin Nash is sticking around for another year as his contract just
rolled over.

TNA completed a temporary deal in the UK with Virgin 1 to broadcast
Impact on Friday nights from October 30 to December 4. Impact’s official
home in the UK will remain as Bravo, but Virgin, who own the channel,
are putting the show on their most watched station for a limited time to
brings new fans in. It’s a major deal because Virgin’s portfolio of
channels are available in over 21 million homes in the UK and Ireland.

Taz made a point on his Facebook to distance himself from the writing
team. He said fans shouldn’t send suggestions to him because he has no
input.

As expected, Ed Ferrara was officially added to the writing team this
week. The team is headed by Vince Russo with Ferrara and Matt Conway as
assistants. Jeremy Borash also sits in on meetings and has some input.

Zakk Wylde was hired to play the National Anthem at Bound For Glory.
Apparently he is Ozzy Osbourne’s former guitarist. Dixie Carter was
quoted in a press release as saying, “Zakk will start the show with a
performance people will talk about for years to come.”

Mick Foley is doing a stand-up comedy gig (well, Q&A and story telling)
tonight in Long Island at the Brokerage Comedy Club. He was pushing the
gig yesterday on the Opie and Anthony radio show and told a funny story
about him and Kurt Angle running into MMA fighter Mark Coleman in
Ireland. He said Kurt was legit getting pissed at Coleman for forgetting
the date of their amateur wrestling match.

Foley is planning to tour the comedy club circuit with Colt Cabana soon.

You can add Foley to the list of wrestler’s donating their brain after
death to concussion research.

TNA return to New York on December 6 for a house show at the Glens Falls
Civic Center.

OTHER WRESTLING NEWS

Nick Bollea has been cast in a movie called Kill Katie Malone. It’s a
straight to DVD horror film about college students who pool their cash
to purchase a ghost in an online auction and unleash the spirit of an
Irish servant girl who has been wreaking havoc on her owners throughout
several generations.

Ric Flair during a radio interview this week said Vince McMahon gave him
his blessing to come out of retirement for the Hulkamania tour. He said
he feels in great shape and is working out in the gym every day in
preparation.”It gives Hulk and I a chance to see if we’ve still got it
going on,” he said.

A couple more names on the Hulkamania tour are Kiara Dillon, wife of
Gangrel, and Koa-Marie, a former Playboy model. Rock of Love is the tag
team of Billy Blade and Kaden Anthony. We received a new press release
which promised the shows would have state of the art production, a huge
pyrotechnics display and large screens to show the audience what is
happening back stage in between wrestling matches. You know, like the
nWo arriving in a Limo. More information at www.hulkamania.com.au.

Slam Wrestling at http://tinyurl.com/yzywgme has a Q&A with Jim Duggan.
He credits his wrestling career to Fritz Von Erich: “I played college
ball at Southern Methodist [in Texas], then met Fritz on a recruiting
trip when I was a freshman. Then years later I gave him a call and went
down to the Sportatorium. He liked my look — even though I had short
hair and was clean shaven — and he showed me how to hit the ropes. And
yeah, I hit the ropes with all the Von Erich boys — I never had any
problem with them.” He also credited Bruiser Brody for his giving him
his gimmick and described Brody as one the best big men ever in the
business. Good read.

April Hunter appears Saturday at the Horror & Comic convention in
Nashville, TN. More info at www.comiccitytn.com.

The Blue Meanie was a special guest Monday at an Irish Bar in Philly for
an event called “Boobie Bingo” to benefit a breast cancer charity.
Sounds like fun.

Promolast Events at www.promolastevents.com has a message from Diamond
Dallas Page to raise funds for the Shepherd Center, which is the spinal
rehab organization that helped Lex Luger.

WRESTLING GLOBE MAILBAG

Captain Lou Albano was one of the most unique characters and human
beings I have ever known. He was one-of-a-kind and I will miss him on
both a personal and professional level.

Bill Apter

***

One of my biggest breaks in the wrestling business came in 1973 when I
was working in New York for Vince McMahon Sr. I had been in the
territory for about six weeks just marking time when one day in Philly
at a television taping I was told that Vince wanted to talk to me. I
started sweating bullets thinking there was a problem and Vince was
going to call me on the carpet.

When I arrived where Vince was standing in the old Philly arena he said
to me, “Mikey (I was Iron Mike McCord then), I’m going to start making
you some money. I’m going put you with Lou Albano and let him manage you
and you’ll immediately start making more money.”

He did and I did. Being with Lou for 13 months was unreal. There will
never, ever, ever be another Lou, He was the greatest! I have a million
stories I could tell about Lou and I’m so glad I have them. God Bless
You Lou and thanks for helping a young punk kid from the poor side of
town in South Tampa make it.

Austin Idol

***

A TRIBUTE TO A BEAUTIFUL LADY

We just returned around 11:30pm last night from what was a most moving
and beautiful tribute to a beautiful lady.

Early yesterday I had a call from Ted DiBiase, who had driven from his
home in Mississippi and was in St Louis, we arranged to meet in Eldon MO
for dinner and then go over to the community center where there was a
visitation for B. J. Race. Eldon is a small town and we expected to see
a handful of locals who were wrestling fans and a few of the wrestlers
from Harley’s wrestling school there thinking most would go today to
Kansas City where the funeral was to be.

What a wonderful tribute were we about to witness, as we pulled into
the parking lot at 6:05 PM, there was no where to park, the lot was
full, I would estimate some 150 cars. Found a spot on the outskirts of
the lot and we walked into this nice large building where Harley and BJ
held their wrestling shows twice a year. They had set it up like a
chapel with the long wall as you enter full of family photos for 4
tables, about 32 feet, and then a massive number of floral pieces, the
first on was a huge wreath from Vince McMahon, (while we were there
Vince called to briefly talk to Rob and Harley) then beautiful
arrangements and plants and even one large tree from friends and family
and wrestlers from all over. I counted the floral pieces there was 53 in
all.

The other wall all the former students and current wrestlers from the
WLW stood and lined the 300 foot wall, by 7:00Pm there were some 50 plus
young wrestlers standing, hands folded in tribute. Including Trevor
Murdock, Bull Schmitt, Dangerous Derek, John Pantoya, Steve Fender,
Darin Wade, Brian Nguyen,Amy Hennig, Joe Hennig flew in from WWE
Florida, Becca Swansen, Lucy Memdez and many more.

Harley’s first graduate Matt Murphy and all the wrestlers stood up and
he gave a tear pulling tribute to BJ, and several of the wrestlers
showed a heartfelt loss as the tears fell. He said it is easy to see why
her e mail was WLWMOM as she was a mother away from home to all those
who attended the Harley Race Wrestling Academy.

The center section of the community center was set up with 2 sections of
chairs, each 11 wide and 10 deep for 220 seating, we sat in row 9 and
got there at 6:05, by 7:30 they had to break out more chairs, counting
those that stayed for the whole two and a half hours and those who came
and paid their respects i would guess somewhere around 400 plus.

Harley’s long time partner and closest friend Larry “The AX ” Hennig
was there with his wife and they sat in the last row with Ted DiBiase
and several other wrestlers that I did not know.

To top off a fantastic tribute, on Saturday night I was able to reach
Ken Hirayama in Hawaii and told him of BJ’s passing, and asked him to
call Mr. Ryu, president of Noah Wrestling in Japan and let him know. At
7:30 Pm both and Ken and Rhu showed up in person. He had been traveling
from Japan to Hawaii to St Louis a total of 30 plus hours to be there.
Less then 48 hours from the time he was called some 30 hours in the air
and in a car he was there. Two very caring men who stood and shed a tear
with some 400 others, I have gotten to know these men over the last 4 or
5 years and take pride in their friendship and support of the CAC.

Kyle Mason who was the City Administrator in Eldon when Harley and BJ
opened his school there, 10 years ago, is also a ordained pastor, gave a
moving tribute to BJ and a eulogy that showed why she was so respected
and loved by this small town.

Beverly Ann Race had just turned 60 the 9th of this month, I know I will
miss working with her at the future WLW shows and miss her smiles and
rough voice when she says “OK lets go count the tickets and give you
your tax money”, and then smile and say but your such a nice tax
collector.

Karl Lauer

***

When it is said that Captain Lou Albano was one of the greatest managers
of all times I do not agree. In my opinion he was THE greatest manager
of all times. There was nobody in WWE history that even came close to
his ability to entertain people. Captain Lou Albano was the best the
was, the best there is and the best that will ever be.

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